Lithuanian Labor Leaders Jailed for Accounting Fraud, BNS Says

July 12 (Bloomberg) -- A Lithuanian court imposed prison
sentences on two leaders of Lithuania’s Labor Party, part of the
ruling coalition, after finding them guilty of fraud, the Baltic
News Service reported, citing a ruling in the capital, Vilnius.

Viktor Uspaskich, who founded the Labor Party and heads its
parliamentary faction, was handed a four-year sentence and
Vitalija Vonzutaite of the budget and finance committee was
given three years, BNS reported. First Deputy Speaker Vytautas
Gapsys was fined 35,700 litai ($13,500), according to the news
service. All three deny wrongdoing.

The court judgment relates to accounting practices
perpetrated between 2004 and 2006, according to BNS. Uspaskich,
a Russian born entrepreneur, said he’d appeal the verdict in
remarks broadcast on LRT Radijas after the ruling.

The Labor Party, which together with Prime Minister
Algirdas Butkevicius’s Social Democrats and two other parties
formed a government after October elections, has a 29-member
faction in the Baltic nation’s 141-seat parliament. The ruling
won’t affect government operations, Butkevicius told LRT
Radijas.

Parliament revoked the three politicians’ immunity from
prosecution in December to allow the fraud case to proceed.
Uspaskich and Vonzutaite will remain free until the appeals
process has been exhausted, according to BNS.